The Obloquy of Newness
by nb41
Summary: Jane just wants to present her findings and maybe win a Nobel Prize. That would be a lot easier if all these xenophobes, science deniers, and robots bent on world destruction would stop getting in the way. Or, Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis, and what they were up to before, during, and after Avengers: Age of Ultron. (Jane/Thor, containers spoilers for Age of Ultron.)
1. Chapter 1

This fic is _Avengers: Age of Ultron_ compliant and contains spoilers for the MCU up to and including the events of that movie. It's not strictly contemporaneous with _Waterborne_ or _Welcome to the Fall_ , though you can probably consider all three to share continuity to a limited extent.

I am playing a little fast and loose with the timeframe of _Age of Ultron_ 's events, and may not be tracking the movie with complete accuracy.

* * *

Jane said, "I'm going to throw up."

"Long as you do it _after_ your talk, that's fine," Darcy said. Jane glared at her.

"That's not helpful."

"Seriously, just go up there, give your presentation, and answer any questions. Then you retreat to the bathroom and toss your breakfast, we find Thor, and go get some lunch."

Jane caught a whiff of something someone was eating nearby which smelled strongly of onions, and her stomach lurched in protest. She squeezed her eyes shut. "Let's stop talking about food."

She heard Darcy say, "Sure thing," and felt something push against her hand. She opened her eyes to find Darcy offering her a wax paper cup of cold water. Jane took it and drank it all in one go. Surprisingly, it helped.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Out on the stage, the chair of the symposium was just wrapping up his brief introduction to her talk. She could see from this angle that the lecture hall was _packed_ with people, and despite that she'd given a half-dozen of these talks in the last year her heart still beat a frantic rhythm. This was different than all those prior talks. This wasn't a guest lecture at CalTech or a short talk at an RAS luncheon. This was the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"Just remember," Darcy said, "Thor's out there. Somewhere."

"Right."

The glare of the stage lights left the audience a dark suggestion of bodies in seats and not much else, making it all but impossible for her to spot him. She thought she'd found him—there was a particularly tall person with a bright head somewhere in the upper-left corner—but movement caught her eye. Dr. Tax was waving at her to come out from the wings.

She took a deep breath and nodded at him.

"Ladies and Gentleman, may I introduce Dr. Jane Foster," he said.

The applause was deafening. With a last nervous glance at Darcy (who gave her an encouraging thumbs up), Jane stepped out into the stage light.

* * *

The talk went smoothly, with no technical glitches and more than a few excited murmurs when she showed the combined datasets from the Convergence, her recent observation time at Atacama, and a much earlier stint she'd done at Arecibo during graduate school. The Arecibo data was the very set of readings which had set her on this path all those years ago, and she took more than a little pride in proving her 23 year old self right. It was immensely gratifying to finally stand up on a stage in front of hundreds of her peers and say, "Interstellar travel is out there waiting for us to discover."

She was the last talk before the lunch break, and so found herself held over for nearly fifteen minutes by a handful of enthusiastic physicists who were dying to pick her brain. Eventually Darcy took pity on her and barged in, insisting Jane had an important appointment with a foreign dignitary which she couldn't be late for. One by one they traded email addresses with Jane and departed.

"Thank you," Jane said once the last one had left. "Can we get coffee? I need coffee. And we need to find Thor."

"Everything looked _packed_ so I sent him to get us a table for lunch at that brewery place Helen recommended. We'll hit up the stand on our way there."

"Okay." Jane ran her hands over her face. "I can't believe I survived that."

"You did a lot more than survive, you kicked ass. Now come on." Darcy began leading Jane through the enormous convention center. Jane smiled and willed her legs to stop shaking. It got easier with each step.

"Thanks. And, thanks, for, you know, everything."

"That's why you pay me the big bucks."

Jane winced. "Well, hopefully they'll be bigger bucks. Soon."

"Here's hoping."

There was only one place serving coffee which didn't have a twenty minute line, mostly because it was a small, private booth tucked into the corner of a long hallway. Darcy had identified it on the first day ("First order of business: find the coffee stand that can get me coffee fast," she'd said), and sure enough they'd never had to wait more than a few minutes. Today, however, the wait turned out to be a few minutes too long.

As they stood off to one side waiting for their drinks, an unfamiliar voice said, "Dr. Foster?"

Jane and Darcy turned together. The young man addressing them was, at most, a couple of years older than Darcy. He was pale and dark haired and gray eyed, and wearing khakis and a light blue button down shirt that did nothing for his long face and flat, unfriendly smile.

Finding herself wary for a reason she couldn't easily identify, Jane said, "Yes?"

The young man's smile turned a little triumphant. "My name's Oliver. I was just watching your talk, about the Greenwich Event. It was very interesting."

Jane shifted. "Thanks, I find it interesting too."

"So you believe those portals shown in all the online videos were gateways to other worlds?"

Darcy narrowed her eyes but said nothing. Jane said, "I don't 'believe' it, I know it." The barista called out Darcy's name, and she went to get their drinks. "Two RAF pilots flew through one, and at least one extraterrestrial creature was found that may have come through another."

"You're referring to whatever it was that almost destroyed the University of Greenwich library. The supposed 'alien beast' which mysteriously disappeared."

Jane licked her lips. She had a sinking suspicion she knew where this was going. "Yes. Some of the best molecular biologists and biophysicists in the world are examining the samples from it even now to learn more about it and where it came from."

"And who would those scientists be?"

Darcy, who was just returning with their drinks, said, "Sorry, can't give that kind of information out," and handed Jane her latte. Oliver glared at Darcy, then focused on Jane again.

"That doesn't seem very keeping with transparency, something you've been vocal about in all of your talks."

Jane fingered her coffee cup. "Not everyone agrees with me about transparency in research when it comes to these kinds of events. And, unfortunately, I'm not in a position to make them do what I want."

"Understandable," Oliver said, like he was doing her some sort of kindness. "But since you're all about transparency, how much of this work is really yours, and how much of it comes from that person that you're always with? The one who's supposedly an alien? I mean how do we know this isn't some sort of elaborate scam?"

Shock and rage made Jane's face warm, and she could feel a tirade welling up inside of her. Before she could say anything, Darcy leaned forward and grabbed his conference badge.

"Is this even real?" she said, her voice much louder than necessary. Oliver stared at her, wide-eyed. Darcy looked over her shoulder towards the escalators leading to the exhibit hall floor and shouted, "Security!"

Oliver swatted his badge out of Darcy's hand, turned, and fled. A small knot of convention center staff had been watching the interaction with shrewd eyes from down the hall; two of them gave chase. Jane lost sight of Oliver and the staff pursuing him among the shuffle of attendees. Another staffer came over to Jane and Darcy, and asked about the incident: had they seen him before, here or at other conferences; did they recognize him; what had he approached them about. After a few minutes of this she seemed satisfied and let them go, with a request that they contact security immediately if they saw him again.

Darcy called Thor and let him know they were running a few minutes late but would be there shortly, and they set off for the restaurant. Jane tried to organize her thoughts as they walked.

"Did that really just happen? I mean, he was saying Thor and I are running a—a con."

"Drink your coffee," Darcy said. She kept their pace brisk but not hectic.

Jane sipped from the latte. She wasn't sure it was really helping. "I didn't hallucinate that, right? I was accused of being, being a _fraud_. By a guy who used a fake badge to sneak into a scientific conference."

Around a drink from her mocha, Darcy said, "Science denier," and shrugged. "I was reading about it on the lab admin mailing list—some of them sneak into the big conferences and harass the popular people."

"I'm popular?"

Darcy gave her an impatient look. "You're the astrophysicist who has the data and boyfriend which prove interstellar travel and alien societies are a thing. You're popular. You're a Name. Drink your coffee."

Jane nursed her latte and tried not to run into anyone as they wove through the lunch rush. The brewery was outside the convention center and down a couple of blocks, requiring a brief foray into the city proper. By the time they'd arrived the coffee had kicked in, and Jane felt a little better.

"I mean, I'm used to the emails."

Darcy snorted. She was scanning the sea of heads in the brewery dining room, trying to spot Thor. Absently, she said, "You don't even see the really bad ones, I just report those as harassment."

"For which I am eternally grateful."

"There he is," Darcy said. She lead Jane down to the patio deck, where Thor was sitting at a corner table which would afford them a little privacy. There was a view of an immaculately kept rock, palm, and succulent garden below them.

"I hope this will be acceptable," Thor said as they approached. He stood and leaned over to kiss Jane on the cheek.

"It's more than acceptable," Jane assured him, and took her seat.

Darcy sat down heavily. "Did you have to bribe the hostess?"

"I did, though she did not ask for much." When Jane raised her eyebrows in a silent request for clarification, Thor said, "She merely wished for a picture with me."

Darcy tapped her chin. "I wonder what the 'Selfies with Thor' exchange rate is..."

Jane said, "No."

"What? I'm not planning anything."

"Not yet. But you will."

"Wow, _no_ faith."

"Not really, no," Jane said, and set to perusing the menu. Thor smiled and said nothing. The waiter, a middle-aged, olive-skinned man who introduced himself as Byeong-ha, came to get their orders. He seemed to be in particularly good spirits, and once he'd left Thor explained he'd revealed himself to be a fan of Jane's.

"A fan? I have fans now?"

Darcy gave Jane one of her, 'But of course,' looks. Thor said, "Of course. Thousands of your people witnessed your bravery in defense of the Nine Realms, and the knowledge you obtained from the Convergence will empower you to realize interstellar travel for Midgard. Why should you not have admirers?"

Jane was too used to Thor singing her praises to get embarrassed by it anymore. Random strangers was another thing entirely, though. She felt her face grow warm, and took a drink from her water to dispel the feeling. "But I'm just an astrophysicist," she said, toying with the glass. "I was just doing what I had to."

"Which just so happened to be saving the universe," Darcy said. "Pretty fan-worthy."

Thor said, "Darcy is right," and smiled encouragingly. Jane just fidgeted with her water until Byeong-ha returned with their soups, salads, and drinks. Thor and Darcy had beer (stout for Thor, lager for Darcy) and Jane had a concoction of ginger ale, lemon bitters, and lime juice.

As they got to work on their sides, Darcy said to Thor, "Okay big guy, give me the scoop."

Thor was, it turned out, pretty good at eavesdropping. He had 'fake engagement in something' down to an art form, something he said he and Loki had needed to perfect while growing up. It was an essential skill in politics, and though Thor wasn't good about masking his emotions in a general sense, this was one thing he'd worked hard to master. Upon finding out about it Darcy had enlisted him in her efforts to gather any and all gossip relating to Jane and her field.

"There is much talk of a push to produce devices which will explore interstellar space," Thor said. "One group seemed to think an entrepreneur—I believe his name was Musk—would be securing a contract to do this soon. They speculated he might align with Virginia Potts and Stark to produce the necessary equipment."

Jane grimaced. She appreciated the emphasis Pepper, Tony, and Elon Musk were putting on space exploration, but she didn't care for the privatization, not one bit. Darcy caught her expression and shrugged at her.

Thor took a drink from his beer and continued. "The arguments about the appropriateness of constructing the observatory on the native Hawaiians' land lead to some heated debate. And two individuals were having an animated conversation about Jane being considered for some manner of title or accolade."

"Yeah?" Darcy asked. "Which one?"

"They referred to it as a 'Nobel'."

Jane choked on her cocktail. Darcy's jaw dropped open.

" _Seriously_?"

"Yes," Thor said, though his focus remained on Jane and her attempts to clear her throat. He was poised to help her. "Are you well?"

Jane took a few steadying breaths, and when she was sure she could talk again, said, "Yeah. You're sure they said Nobel?"

Thor nodded and settled back. He looked between the two of them. "Is this an award of note?"

"It's kind of a big deal," Darcy said. "Even though it's just a bunch of old dudes saying you did something cool."

Jane sighed. "She's right, it's...a big deal even though it's also historically very sexist and racist in terms of who wins, and how people who've spoken out against their decisions were treated later on. But there's a monetary award, and a lot of recognition in the community, and it's _really_ nice to put in your biosketch when you apply for grants."

Thor scratched at his beard. "When may we expect to hear that you will be honored with this commendation?"

"Well, there's no guarantee," Jane said, and Thor smiled one of his 'of course' smiles. She ignored it. "I think Erik said they make a phone call, sometime around the end of the year."

Darcy, who was holding up her phone now, said, "Looks like it's the Wednesday of the second week of October. And they call on Swedish time." She set her phone down and had a bite of shrimp. "I'll make sure your phone's charged."

Jane laughed and shook her head. "Thanks, Darcy, but..." Darcy raised her eyebrows, and Jane said, "Realistically speaking, my chances aren't good. I'm young, and only two women have ever won the Nobel Prize in Physics."

Darcy snapped her fingers and pointed at Jane. "Curie," she said. Jane waited. Darcy bit her lip. "Uh...M, something...M?"

"Maria Goeppert-Mayer."

Darcy groaned. "Mayer, right. And Curie won forever ago, didn't she?"

"Over a century," Jane said. "In 1903? I think. Mayer was in the 1960s."

"Forever indeed," Thor murmured with a sly smile. Jane felt Darcy try to kick him under the table; Thor only smiled more broadly in response. Then he sobered. "If it has been so long, there is no time like the present for another woman to win. You have experienced things none other of your discipline has."

"Except for Erik," Jane said. "If history's any indication, he'll be the one they give the award to."

" _He_ hasn't published jack shit about the Convergence," Darcy said.

"Nor did he travel to Asgard over the Bifröst and study our archives, however briefly," Thor added.

Jane bit her lip. Maybe it wasn't completely impossible. Maybe. She didn't want to get her hopes up, though, only to have that day come and go without a phone call. So she said, "I guess we'll see."

Thor reached across the table, took her hand, and squeezed it. "So we shall."

* * *

The food was filling and delicious. Jane and Thor traded bits of their barbecue chicken and steak and roasted vegetable sides, and Darcy parted with a couple of her shrimp after Thor gave her an imploring look. They'd just finished up and were waiting to pay when Thor pulled his smartphone out and frowned at it.

"Uh-oh," Darcy said. "Duty calls?"

Thor's expression went from concerned to surprised. "Good news?" Jane said. He nodded, typed out a quick reply to whatever text he'd received, and pocketed his phone again.

"Maria Hill believes they may have found—" He paused, his eyes flitting around them. "Something we have been seeking for some time."

Darcy's eyes widened. "You mean the, uh," she scanned the table and grabbed Jane's unused knife, and held it up.

"Yes," Thor said, his tone somber. "I will rest easier once it is back in our possession."

Unable to mask her disappointment, Jane said, "This means you have to get going?" Thor ducked his head.

"I'm afraid so. I apologize that I will not be able to attend the rest of the conference with you."

She tried to smile; it felt wane and forced, so she reached over and rubbed his arm to reassure him. She'd long ago accepted that his work with the Avengers would often take him away from her for unknown stretches of time, and the scepter Loki had used in New York was one thing Thor had been determined to recover after he'd learned it was still on Earth.

As Byeong-ha approached with the bill, Thor said, "Perhaps you should offer to take a picture with him, as I did with the hostess."

"Or, you can autograph something in addition to the credit card slip," Darcy added.

"I—that seems kind of...presumptive," Jane said. Byeong-ha was almost to their table.

Looking smug, Thor said, "Considering the length at which he and I discussed your work before you arrived, I don't believe the offer will be ill-received."

They weren't wrong. Byeong-ha was delighted and admitted he'd been considering going back to college and finishing his degree; he'd been a Physics graduate student when his mother had fallen ill, and he'd left college to care for her.

"I know it's not easy to start back up after a big break like that," he said. "But," he flicked a sideways glance at Thor, "now seems as good a time as any."

"You should do it," Jane said. "If that's the career you want, then go for it. It might feel a little late, but a lot of us don't get off to a running start."

He smiled and nodded, and gripped his phone tightly. On it were photos of himself with Jane and also Darcy and Thor. "Thank you, Dr. Foster," he said. "And Thor and Ms. Lewis."

Thor clapped him on the back. "You are most welcome, Byeong-ha Lee. The lunch was commendable."

"Our pleasure," Darcy said. "Come on you two, people are staring."

Darcy was right; patrons were casting inconspicuous glances at them and murmuring to one another. Byeong-ha went back to his tables, and they managed to escape without being accosted by anyone.

* * *

They went back to the hotel room so Jane could bid Thor a proper farewell, and also shower and change. She had no intention of attending the rest of the afternoon's panels in presentation clothes, no way no how. That these things all went together was a nice coincidence (despite the reason).

She saw him off on her room's meager balcony. He was in his armor, making hugging him a not-entirely-comfortable affair, but she leaned in anyways and took a deep breath. Even around the scent of leather and metal she could still smell him. "If you find the scepter will you have to take it back to Asgard?"

"Yes." Thor stroked her face. "And I thought I might also use the opportunity to negotiate a journey to Asgard of your own."

Jane shivered at the excitement his suggestion generated. "Really?"

"Yes. A proper visit this time. For you and Darcy, if she wishes."

Jane tried to contain her enthusiasm. "That would be amazing. I'd love to study the archives and see the academies and just, get some time away from—" She remembered the coffee stand run-in, and her mood deflated. "...people."

Thor's good humor faded. "Has something happened?"

"No, nothing, just..." His scrutiny intensified, and Jane looked away. "It was just some science denier trying to tell me I'm a fraud and it's all you and you're not even really an alien and..." Her voice died when she noticed the clouds on the horizon getting bigger. She glanced up; Thor's face had gone blank.

"Who was this individual?" he asked. He was really, really bad at sounding casual when he was mad. Jane ran a hand over her face.

"No one. It's fine. Really, it's fine. Darcy took care of it."

Thor relaxed and made a low sound. The clouds didn't seem to be gathering so quickly now. He kissed Jane's forehead. "I shall thank her for doing so."

"She'll just say running off creeps is her job."

"That doesn't mean I shouldn't thank her for it." He kissed her and held her tight, and she returned the favor.

"Be careful," she said into his neck. There was almost never a reason for her to worry, but sometimes she couldn't help it. Fortunately he never brushed off her concerns.

"I will be," he promised her. "I'll call you as soon as I may."

Jane stepped clear, and Thor swung Mjölnir once, twice, and shot up into the sky.


	2. Chapter 2

Jane had another talk to give at the end of the conference, so she spent most of her time between sessions preparing for it and not thinking about the science denier or how Thor wouldn't be there to see this one. Darcy kept her busy and in coffee and food, and the days up to and including her second talk passed by without any serious incidents. No one harassed her this time, though she thought there might have been more conference staff milling around than previously. There was an even larger crowd of excited peers afterward; of course, she'd expected that, since this talk specifically centered on the Greenwich Event itself rather than the data she'd been gathering for years. Everyone, but _everyone_ in astrophysics wanted to know about the Greenwich Event, and Jane and Sadira Ramachandran's work on the data she'd gathered was the talk of the field.

During the end-of-conference banquet her phone started to buzz. She was engaged in a conversation with Dr. Birte Møller from the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics about her upcoming visit, so Darcy picked it up. After checking the number she answered, which meant it could be only one person. Jane half-listened while she and Birte chatted.

"Hey, big guy, how'd it go?" A short pause. "Oh yeah? Good to hear, I'll let her know." A much longer pause, and Darcy sighed. "Let me check, but I'm not holding my breath. Might be a minute, she's knee-deep in scientific schedule planning."

Eventually Birte turned to ask Dr. Tax, who was seated at a neighboring table, a clarification question about Jane's NORDITA schedule. Jane took the opportunity to raise her eyebrows at Darcy, and Darcy said, "They got it, and are celebrating with a party at the Tower."

Jane grimaced. As much as she wouldn't have minded a chance to go to one of Tony's parties—it would be nice to catch up with Helen and Pepper and Bruce—the trip to NORDITA had been on her docket for months now. She wasn't going to reschedule it again.

She shook her head and resumed her planning session with Birte. Across the table she heard Darcy say, "Yeah, sorry, big blond and beautiful, but your girlfriend is way too busy to come party with you and your friends. She's got a flight tomorrow to Stockholm for four days at that Viking Physics place. I'll text you where we're staying so you can meet us there, okay?"

Birte's next question required most of Jane's attention, so she lost track of Darcy's phone call. By the time Birte had taken her leave Darcy was off the phone.

"I can't believe your packed schedule means we miss out on an Avengers party. You so owe me."

"Next time," Jane said.

Darcy downed the last of her wine and pointed the empty glass at her. "Holding you to that."

* * *

Jane's schedule for the NORDITA visit was packed, which turned out to be a blessing because Thor never showed up. Instead, on the first day she was treated to rumors about some sort of fracas in Stark Tower as reported by people with telescopes in neighboring buildings. None of the footage of the incident was good; even the clearest shots didn't allow for easy identification of who was who and what, if anything, they were fighting. Jane called Thor as soon as she and Darcy were done watching the best smartphone recording available. To her relief he picked up after the first ring.

"Jane," he said. "Are you well?"

"Yeah, but are _you_? What the hell happened at the Tower?"

"It will take some time to explain." Jane heard voices in the background. "And unfortunately I do not have enough now. I will call you again as soon as I can."

"Okay. Take care."

"I will."

Jane sat there staring at her phone. Darcy said, "Wow that didn't sound good."

"Yeah. Pretty sure they're ramping up to some sort of thing, too."

"Which, means you need me to keep an eye on the news feeds while you crunch numbers and ideas with all these Viking Physicists."

Jane rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Yeah, if you could."

"That's what I'm here for," Darcy said with a nod.

* * *

Darcy didn't, it turned out, need to keep an ear close to the ground at all, because when the next event came it was nowhere near as subtle or shrouded in mystery as the Tower event. Two days later, every TV they came across showed an endless montage of footage from Johannesburg, South Africa in which a big, beefy version of one of Tony's suits duked it out with the Hulk and laid waste to the city. There was no sign of Thor, Steve, Natasha, or Clint in any of the shots; just Tony and Bruce and untold billions in property damage and who knew how many injuries.

She tried calling Thor and got no answer, which didn't help her quell her concerns. Next she tried Pepper; her assistant Joaquin was frank and said Pepper was unlikely to be able to call Jane back any time soon, and that they didn't know a whole lot either. She didn't bother calling Tony or Bruce.

Eventually Jane couldn't deal with the anxiety associated with wondering why none of the rest of the Avengers had been there, and responded as she usually did: she dove headfirst into her work. She vaguely registered Darcy promising to keep trying to reach Thor.

Half of the day passed in this unideal situation. Just as afternoon was giving way to evening, Thor called.

"Jane," he said, sounding relieved. "I apologize for not contacting you sooner."

The apology went a long way to soothing her. She took a breath to steady herself. "It's—well it's not okay but I'm really happy to hear from you so you're ninety percent forgiven. Do you have time to tell me what's going on now? The news is nonstop Tony and Bruce destroying Johannesburg and none of the rest of you there to make it stop."

Thor sighed, and Jane wondered if it was just their bad cell connection that made him sound outright defeated. "There was a complication with the scepter. Hydra used it to produce gifted humans. Stark and Steve refer to them as 'enhanced'."

"Enhanced," Jane repeated.

"Yes. One of them can wield magic." There was a pause, then he added, "Chaos magic, and some of mind and consequence as well, I think."

"Chaos magic, like, the Aether?"

"Yes."

Unease stole over Jane. When Thor had first come back to Earth he'd expressed concern the Aether might have altered her somehow, but there'd never been any indication it had. Helen had run numerous tests and never found anything. Jane trusted Helen implicitly, yet sometimes she wondered if perhaps they didn't know what to really look for, and that was the only reason they'd never found anything.

"Jane?"

The concern in Thor's voice snapped Jane back to their phonecall. "I'm here. Did you—" She stopped short of saying 'take care of them', realizing that these people could easily have been prisoners subjected to experimentation. "Did you stop them?"

"No. What you saw of Stark and Banner, was the work of the magic wielder. And there's more—a construct of Stark's manufacture has become feral, and stole the scepter."

Jane blinked. "Oh. Wow." She rubbed one temple. "This sounds pretty bad."

"It is. I must urge you to be careful. We're struggling to contain these menaces, and their goals are unclear to us."

"We'll be careful." The climate controlled lab space was becoming unbearably cold. Jane suppressed a shudder. "I assume this means you won't be coming to Stockholm."

Even with their less-than-ideal connection Jane could hear the apologetic tone in his voice. "I'm afraid not. I must make inquiries of my own, and then return to the others."

Jane sat back in her chair, if only to encourage her body to relax from the knot it was trying to become. "Inquiries into what?"

"There's a memory I can't focus on. I believe it's important to these matters, and am seeking a way to grasp it more fully."

"A memory? An old one?"

"No, a recent one. It was a vision shown to me." She heard the sound of voices, like a crowd of people walking by. "There's a place I may go which should achieve what I require, but going alone is ill-advised. I'm hopeful Erik will be able to assist me."

Several reactions hit Jane simultaneously, starting with 'What am I, chopped liver?' and ending somewhere around, 'You had better not be trying to protect me'. She gave herself a second to calm down, and managed to say, "Is there any particular reason you're not asking me?" in what she thought was a moderate tone.

It might have just been their connection, but she thought Thor was speaking quietly. "I would prefer it be you who came with me, but your work is important to you, and to all of Midgard. I wouldn't presume to request an interruption in it for something of this nature. You shouldn't be expected to set aside your pursuits every time I'm called to defend the Realm." The tone of his voice lightened, like it did when he smiled. "And Darcy has said your current endeavors were difficult to arrange. She would exact significant restitution from me if she were required to adjust your schedule again."

Just like that, Jane's anger deflated. It was true Darcy would demand the mother of all IOUs from both Thor _and_ Jane if Jane ditched her NORDITA project and hopped on a flight to wherever Thor was going to help him with whatever he was planning. They'd both be years in paying her back for it.

If she was being honest with herself, she'd always known something of this sort would come up. Thor came to her first for help with anything, Avengers-related or not. Yet her career had been steadily gaining momentum in the wake of her first paper after the Convergence, crowding her schedule and leaving her with less and less time for any involvement in Thor's activities with the Avengers. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right: she was already at a point where putting her career on hold to help him would be detrimental.

"Okay," she said, hating that this was her reality. "But you owe me a complete description of whatever you two get up to. Not one of Erik's executive summaries."

She was sure she could hear him smiling now. "You shall have it."

"I'd better. Did Darcy send you the place we'll be at in Brazil?"

"She did. I'll join you there once this threat has been dealt with."

"Okay." She wished he was there so she could hold him again, because 'take care' was getting old. Still, she said, "Take care of yourself."

"I shall."

The call ended, and Jane sat there looking at her phone. Darcy peeked around the edge of her laptop.

"So. Everything's going to hell and he and Erik are off to go do something stupid and dangerous?"

Jane sighed. "Yeah."

"Should I pad your schedule in case we need to go save them?"

Jane wanted to laugh. It would be just her luck that, in hoping to spare Jane's research any interruption, Thor would wind up needing her help anyways. "No. Not yet, anyways. He's going to meet us in São Paulo."

"Gotcha." Darcy disappeared back behind the monitor and resumed typing. Jane toyed with her phone for a few more minutes before getting back to the simulation code sprawled all over her screen.


	3. Chapter 3

The flight to Brazil involved going from Stockholm to London, where they had a modest layover, followed by a short hop to Paris to catch a morning flight to São Paulo. ("Cheap, good seats, fewer legs—pick any two," Darcy said when Jane grumbled about their travel plans for the fifth time.) There was no news from Thor or Erik by the time they got on their plane in Stockholm, and even though Jane hadn't expected to hear back from them a bubble of low-level concern formed inside her. It grew steadily throughout the flight to Heathrow, and by the time they were off the plane Jane was feeling wound tight.

Half-way to the gate for their next flight, Darcy paused in front of one of the only uncrowded TVs in the concourse. Jane pulled up short and just managed to stop herself from saying anything unnecessary. There was no need to take her stress out on Darcy.

"Why are we watching Tony and Bruce destroy Johannesburg for the fiftieth time?" she asked.

In response, Darcy pointed at the TV. It took Jane a few moments to realize that the footage wasn't of Johannesburg. It was a different city entirely—somewhere in Korea, if the language flashing by on signs and buildings was an indicator—and this time a swarm of robots (which bore more than a passing similarity to Tony's Iron Legionnaires) was attacking a biomedical research facility. The fight moved into the city proper, where a few of the Avengers fought back.

Thor was nowhere to be seen, nor was Bruce (not surprising) or Tony (that _was_ surprising). The battle appeared to be over a truck which had a logo Jane couldn't quite make out, yet she had a sinking feeling it was familiar. Unfortunately no one had captured reliable footage of how the fight ended, but there was a shot of the Avengers' quinjet disappearing into the clouds, and some bad smartphone images of a train crash.

Keeping her voice low, Jane said, "Did you see him?" Darcy shook her head.

Jane pulled out her phone and called him. No answer.

Darcy continued to radiate sympathy as she had for the last few days, and nodded her head in the direction of their gate. "Come on. Let's get settled. Maybe we can find a seat near a cafe."

That didn't pan out; the closest they could get was another two gates down, though it did have wall plugs for power. Jane spent the first hour trying to get through the rough draft of her current paper (a collaboration with Miriam Chaudhuri from Stanford) and the second one looking for more information about the chaos in Korea. What she learned didn't soothe her one bit: the truck had been from U-Gin Genetics, which was in Seoul. That was the facility Helen Cho worked in.

"Oh you have _got_ to be kidding me," Darcy said, and Jane looked up to see her glaring at the departures/arrivals board. It showed their flight to Paris as delayed...by nearly four hours.

Jane sagged. "Won't we miss the flight to Brazil?"

"Yep," Darcy said, and shoved to her feet. She pulled out their boarding passes and passports and aimed for the gate, saying, "Be right back," and marched off to do battle.

Jane looked between her phone and her laptop. No word from Thor. Nothing from Erik, though he almost never remembered to charge his phone. No word from Pepper.

She spent the handful of minutes prior to Darcy's return hating how much and how little the Internet had to tell her. It was enough to make her sick with worry, and not enough to give her any idea of what was really happening.

As she retook her seat, Darcy said, "They told me to give them a few minutes. They're going to see if they can put us on an earlier flight that's not delayed."

Jane sighed and shoved her phone into her purse. "I'm gonna get something to drink from that restaurant bar."

Darcy was already back on her laptop. "Don't get so drunk they won't let you board."

"I won't," Jane promised over her shoulder.

It was quiet in the little restaurant, with only a handful of people seated among the tables and two at the bar: a younger, dusky skinned woman with exceedingly long hair, wearing business casual attire and chatting with a waitress at one end; and an older man with carefully combed and gelled, ghostly white hair and a pale, almost waxy complexion, dressed in a trim, black suit.

Jane took a seat a few chairs down from the man, who was tapping away at his smartphone and nursing a clear and fizzy drink. He glanced at Jane as she took her seat, and once the bartender left to get her order, said to her, "Dr. Jane Foster, as I live and breathe. Wouldn't have expected to run into you here."

Jane looked up when he said her name, somewhat on reflex, and blinked at him. Try as she might, she couldn't place him. "Ah, hi." She bit her lip, hoping some notion of who he was might surface, if she just waited long enough, but all that came up was a big fat blank. "I'm really sorry if we've met and I've forgotten your name, but...I don't remember it."

The man seemed amused. "We haven't met, no." He leaned over and offered his hand. "Jared Kreisberg."

Jane knew Professor Kreisberg tangentially, because he was both a Nobel Laureate in Medicine and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. His specialization was molecular biophysics, so she'd heard Betty Ross and Helen Cho mention him now and then. Although he was a Big Name, they moved in different circles, and despite Jane's meteoric rise to fame she wouldn't have expected him to recognize her at an airport restaurant bar.

"Oh, hi." Jane shook herself out and reached over to give what she hoped was a firm handshake. "It's good to meet you."

"The feeling's mutual," Kreisberg said, and took a drink from his glass. "What brings you to Heathrow?"

"This is just a stop-over. We're stuck here because my flight to Paris was delayed, so we're trying to get rebooked." The bartender came by with her drink, and Jane murmured her thanks and took a sip (in keeping with her promise to Darcy, it was a Shirley Temple). "How about you?"

"Heading to Germany for the European Biophysics Congress." He tapped his smartphone on the bar. "And I was just at the annual NAS meeting."

The National Academy of Science's annual meeting was, of course, where they inducted new members. Jane spent a moment wondering if she might ever find herself with an invitation to it, then said, "How was it?"

"Very interesting. A lot of presentations on all of the, curious new science out there now."

Jane narrowed her eyes. "Curious new science?"

Kreisberg had finished his drink, and gestured to the bartender for another. It appeared to be nothing more exotic than club soda with simple syrup and a few slices of citrus. "Well, ever since your ah, friend from outer space showed up things are very different." He gave her what felt like a scrutinizing look. "Not that I need to be telling you that."

"I'm not sure I...understand what you mean."

"Well, you were there when a spaceship crash landed in Greenwich and disappeared only a few minutes later, weren't you?"

"Yes, through a—"

"Through a gravitational distortion that allowed instantaneous travel through time and space to another point, probably in another galaxy, due to a massive buildup in events which had until that day been largely isolated and rare." Jane blinked at him. "I've read your papers. Your numbers look solid, don't think I don't believe you."

Jane turned her glass in her hand. She wasn't like Darcy, who could easily see where a conversation was going towards, even a meandering one, and she wasn't like Thor, who could cut right to the chase and demand someone stop mincing words. "I guess I don't know what you're getting at then."

"Portals opening and admitting entire alien armies? Armies with biomechanical constructs as some sort of," Kreisberg gestured with his glass, "troop carrier. And the stars—you've seen the photos, I assume, of the constellations through that portal?"

Jane had. She'd helped identify some possible locations, in fact, though her name had helpfully been missing from those documents when the big SHIELD leak had gone out.

"I have, yes."

"Stars in constellations we've never laid eyes on, not even with all our deep field surveys. And of course, there's that alien spaceship I mentioned, which produced more actual aliens. Different ones."

Jane took a drink of her Shirley Temple. Kreisberg watched her, toying with his glass. "My point is, Dr. Foster, all of science has changed radically in just a few short years. Whole alien civilizations—three, at a minimum, and we have to assume there's more than just them—capable of interstellar travel." He looked right at her. "And you, in the thick of it."

Jane felt like they were homing in on his real point. "That was just a case of right place right time."

"Indeed—you were one of the only people on the planet looking at these kinds of phenomena, which means you'd have been just about the only person to run into that creature that fell out of the sky in New Mexico."

Jane's brain latched onto the word 'creature'. "Æsir."

"Pardon?"

"Æsir," she repeated. "That's what they call themselves."

"Of course," Kreisberg said. He took a long drink of his cocktail. "Has it occurred to you that being so chummy with it—him, whatever—isn't such a good idea?"

It took Jane a second to dislodge her attention from the fact that Kreisberg had just referred to Thor as 'it'. She tried to sound unconcerned as she said, "Why's that?"

"Why? We're talking about a very real alien which just _happens_ to appear astonishingly human. Doesn't that seem a little convenient to you? It can't be what they normally look like."

"I've _been_ to Asgard they all looked pretty humanoid—"

"Ah, that's the the problem though, isn't it? They _look_ human." When all she did was stare, he took a sip from his soda. "You saw the footage of the other one when it was out rampaging in Germany, didn't you?"

She realized in a rush what he was getting at. "That was different."

"Really? How? We watched it use illusions and who knows what else to show us things which may or may not have been real. Are we sure this one that's running around calling itself Thor isn't doing the same thing?" He gave her a once-over whose implications were impossible to mistake given what he said next. "And if the rest of the rumors are true, then I guess it's a pretty convincing act it's got going on."

Breaking her glass over his head would be a bad idea, and she only had to tell herself that four times to make it stick. One of her hands was a tight fist that she didn't think she could unclench, so she flattened the other out on the bar. "Why do you think they'd go to those kinds of lengths?"

Kreisberg shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe this is their petting zoo." He gestured with his glass. "Maybe they're testing out some things on us we haven't figured out yet."

Jane reminded herself for a fifth time that glass smashing was right out. "That seems like a ridiculous attitude to ascribe to an alien species."

"Why? We do all kinds of silly, useless things to other species."

"This is way beyond that. You're trying to claim they have the mentality of children and treat us like animals."

"Well that one who tried to destroy New York certainly seemed to."

Jane grimaced. She couldn't actually deny that, and wasn't going to try to. "They're a highly varied race with different cultures and hundreds of thousands of years of history, reducing them to that isn't any more accurate than saying because Arizona has a lot of golf courses all humans do is destroy deserts to make golf courses."

He raised his eyebrows. "I don't know, that sounds like an accurate summation of a lot of us, when you get down to it. Most of humanity has no concern for things other than those which immediately involve them. We're not all like that, but generally speaking—"

"Generalities won't help us understand alien species. They just won't. They're not monolithic societies, any more than we are. You didn't see what I saw over there. The technology they have, the way they interact with their world—a world they built themselves, out of a black hole—generalizing about them based on the two we've seen recently is next to useless."

He pushed away from the bar. "I hope for all our sake's you're right about that," he said, and threw a fifty down over his now-empty glass. "Time for me to board. Have a nice flight."

She wanted to say she hoped he had turbulence, but considering what everyone had seen of Thor's capabilities decided it wouldn't be prudent. Nevermind that prudent was the absolute last thing she wanted to be right now. She wanted to engage him in a knock-down, drag-out argument at the top of her lungs.

She wound up saying nothing, just glared at his back as he left. She paid for her drink and went back out to the waiting area, where Darcy was checking her watch and frowning.

Jane sat heavily. "Anything?"

Darcy shook her head. "You okay?"

"No." Jane knew that Darcy was waiting patiently for an explanation, so she said, "There was a biophysicist in the bar who, it turns out, hates aliens."

"...and he knew who you were."

"He knew who I was."

"Did you get his name?"

"You're not signing him up for porn spam."

"What, I wasn't going to do that." Jane gave Darcy a tired look, and Darcy relented. "Okay maybe I was thinking about it in an abstract sense."

"Can you please check with the desk about our flight?"

Darcy sighed, set her laptop aside, and went to stand in line. The area around their gate was blessedly empty of people for the moment, which was a relief because she didn't think she could have taken the noise of a busy terminal at the moment.

Jane ran her hands through her hair. Thor still hadn't called her, so she had no idea how his foray with Erik had gone or what the deal in Seoul had been. Who knew what had happened to him, was maybe happening right now?

Somewhere next to her, a small, British-accented voice said, "Um, excuse me."

Jane looked up to find a little girl, maybe all of ten years old, standing in front of her. She was small and slight, with dark brown skin, short, tightly curled hair, and a brightly colored Wonder Woman t-shirt in turquoise and red and yellow over a simple black skirt. Behind her stood a tall woman with similar features (though her hair was lighter and bound in an intricate braid) dressed in dove gray business casual attire.

With a glance at the woman, Jane said, "Hi."

"Hello. My name is Lakshmi. This is my mom, her name's Nandini."

Nandini raised her hand to Jane and murmured a hello. Her accent, like her daughter's, was also British. Jane said, "Nice to meet you both. Lakshmi, that's a great name. I went to college with someone named Lakshmi."

The girl grinned, bright and eager. "Are you Jane Foster? Dr. Jane Foster?"

Jane straightened in her seat. Darcy was still working out their flight situation at the desk. "That's me," she said.

The little girl seemed ready to explode. "Could you—could you maybe sign this?" She began pulling something out of a Heroes of New York backpack: it was a copy of the Scientific American issue that had Jane on the cover.

"Oh. Oh, sure." She looked up at the woman again, who nodded eagerly. "Did you want me to put it anywhere in particular?"

"Yes, right here." Lakshmi indicated a spot which was clearer than the rest, and offered Jane a blue ink Sharpie. Jane bit her lip as she thought about what to write. "So what do you want to be when you grow up?" she asked.

Lakshmi was rocking on her heels. "An astronaut, so I can go to another galaxy, just like you did."

Jane felt her chest tighten. "Yeah? Like Mae Jemison and Sally Ride?"

Lakshmi nodded. "When we can do that I want fly the ships!"

Jane smiled and cleared her throat. "I bet you'll be a great pilot." She wrote a short note on the cover and added her signature, then offered the magazine and pen back. "There."

"Oh wow." Lakshmi seemed about to touch the ink, but caught herself just in time. Her mother touched her shoulder gently, and Lakshmi said, "Thank you Dr. Foster."

"You're welcome. Thank you for asking me." Jane included Nandini with a glance, and Nandini smiled at her, then ushered her daughter away towards to another gate. Another, older woman in what seemed to Jane's untrained eye to be traditional attire greeted them, and smiled at Lakshmi's excitement as she displayed her newly signed magazine.

Jane sat back, feeling strangely calm and light. There were science deniers and alien-haters, but there were dreamers and people picking up with lives they'd put on hold for other things too. She felt like she'd been one of those people, before she'd met Thor; struggling to make herself heard in a field that didn't listen to women much in the first place. Now it appeared she was the one inspiring others to do the same thing, and it was more than a little weird.

Darcy sat heavily in the seat next to her and offered over Jane's passport and a new, different boarding pass. "Okay, it's sorted. We're on a new flight to Paris which leaves in an hour and a half, leaving us plenty of time to make the plane for Brazil. It's a couple of gates back that way, so no hurry on moving right this second."

Jane examined the boarding pass, tucked it and her passport away, and sat back. Darcy asked, "Anything new and exciting happen while I was gone?"

Jane smiled, mostly to herself. "I met a future spaceship captain."

"Awesome," Darcy said with a nod. "Nothing else? No new explosions? No additional city-wide devastation?"

Jane checked over her shoulder. The various TVs were still wall-to-wall Seoul and Johannesburg, with a few cuts to the grainy, low-resolution New York shots. "Looks like no."

"Maybe Seoul was the last of it then."

Thinking of her still-silent smartphone with no return calls from Thor, Jane said, "Maybe."

* * *

The flight to Paris was short and sweet, and they arrived at Charles de Gaulle with enough time to walk to their gate and make a quick stop at a coffee stand. The situation on the news hadn't changed; Thor didn't answer when Jane called, nor did anyone else, and there were no voicemails waiting for her or Darcy.

 _It's fine_ , she told herself as they boarded. _He's probably just really busy_. And then they were en route to São Paulo and it was back to airplane mode. There was no wifi on this flight, so they were stuck with in-flight entertainment in the form of movies shown on screens embedded in the backs of the seats in front of them. Jane ignored all of that, deciding instead to focus on her plans for the time she'd be at the Brazilian Decimetric Array. She had a few ideas and didn't want to forget them (and it wasn't like she could do anything other than work if she was this wound up).

The flight was smooth and uneventful, with a minimum of screaming children, edible food, and no turbulence. Truth be told it might have been the most productive day she'd had in nearly a month.

As they dragged themselves off the plane Darcy spoke to their contact, Professor Miranda's assistant Renata, and Jane took the opportunity to check her voicemail. No new calls.

"Damnit," Jane muttered. Darcy came to stand next to her.

"Nothing?"

Jane shook her head. Darcy made a face. "Well, in less horrible news, Renata says everything's good to go with the hotel. Professor Miranda wants to take you out to dinner tonight, so, we can head over to the hotel, clean up, and let them know when to come get you."

"What about you?"

"Renata and I are going out."

Of course they were. "Okay," Jane said, and tucked her phone away.

The hotel was plain and not in any way fancy and exactly the kind of thing one expected a University's visiting scholar budget to allow, but it was also clean and the room was quiet, and these two things were all Jane really needed. They took their turns showering and combing news websites and clicking through TV stations, trying to find any kind of useful information. Nothing new seemed to have happened in the ten intervening hours they'd been on the plane. Even though Jane thought that should be a relief, she felt like the lack of word from Thor meant it was only the calm before a storm. She suspected Darcy agreed with her, because without Jane asking her to she was digging for new footage, rumors, anything right up until it was time for them to go on their respective dates.

The dinner of bean and beef stew and vegetable-stuffed pastry pockets and sweet corn dessert was marred by Jane's inability to focus on the no-doubt delicious food in the least. She did manage to hold up her end of the conversation with Professor Miranda, his colleague Marcela, and her husband Gustavo, yet this was the extent of her engagement with their outing. Her phone sat silent in her pocket, a constant reminder of the phonecalls she wasn't getting. The bar's TV wasn't angled so she could see it, lending her no help from that quarter either. She passed the evening in a news blackout that put her on edge.

Darcy hadn't yet returned by the time Jane made it back to the hotel, so Jane set to scouring the Internet until she was too tired to think straight. She called Thor one more time, got his probably-close-to-full voicemail, and went to sleep. She slept fitfully until 6am, and awoke to find Darcy already up and showered, with coffee at the ready.

"Hey," Darcy said around a bite of what appeared to be a roll stuffed with a sauce that smelled distinctly caramel-like. "Glad you woke yourself up, I thought I was going to have to give it a try."

Jane made a noncommittal sound. She couldn't decide if the smell of the rolls and coffee was making her hungry or nauseated. "I didn't even hear you come in."

"Not a surprise; you always sleep hard after a long flight."

It was true that Jane could easily hibernate for a handful of days after any flight over six hours. "When's the first seminar?"

"Nine, but Renata said you've got a meeting with someone at 8:30, so get a move on."

Jane scrubbed at her face. "Right." She checked her phone, and couldn't rouse much of a reaction at the sight of no new voicemails.

"No Thor?" Darcy said, and Jane responded by tossing her phone onto her suitcase. Darcy winced. "Sorry."

"Yeah," Jane muttered, and shuffled towards the bathroom. The shower helped a little, and as she stepped out the smell of coffee had an actual, marked effect. Half of her latte and two salty-cheesey roll things later she was dressed and at her computer and answering emails as quickly as she could. She was half-way through the last response when Darcy said, "Jane."

Jane kept typing, not wanting to lose her train of thought.

"Jane," Darcy repeated.

"Just a second, I'm almost done with this one."

"Jane. Jane. _Jane_."

There was a mounting tone of urgency in Darcy's voice that brought Jane's head up from her laptop screen, and what she saw on the little hotel room's modest TV made her stomach do a somersault.

An entire city was ripping free of the ground and ascending into the sky.


	4. Chapter 4

It was like New York and it wasn't.

It was like it in that there was chaos and panic and a lot of confusion and phone calls not getting through. It was like it in that the Internet and its various video uploading sites were the best source of information on what was going on, because at least you could see it and replay it to your heart's content without woefully uninformed commentary from news anchors. It was like it in that everyone's plans everywhere seemed to just stop. The seminars and meetings and lectures which had been on Jane's schedule for the day were canceled. Instead, Renata took them to Professor Miranda's lab, where he and his collaborators and students had gathered to watch footage on the various computer monitors in awed and terrified silence. When the enormous web of lightning and subsequent explosion blew the city apart, a few of them cast furtive glances at her.

It wasn't like it in that after three hours of waiting in Professor Miranda's lab at a table set aside for visitors, she got a phone call, from Nick Fury.

Everyone stared at her patiently ringing phone as she dug it out of her pocket. She'd been in the middle of discussing some of her NORDITA work with the Professor. "Could I use your office for a second?" she said, and chased it with what she hoped was an apologetic smile.

He nodded, and Darcy lead her there while the whole lab tried to pretend like they were working on something and not waiting for the outcome of the call with baited breath.

Jane answered once the office door was shut behind them. "This is Jane," she said, even though it felt almost perfunctory to do so.

"Dr. Foster," Nick Fury said.

Jane swallowed and tried to ignore the litany of 'Why are you calling me and not Thor' going on in the back of her head. "Director Fury. It's really nice to finally have someone call me back."

"Actually, I'm not director anymore. Just call me Nick."

"Nick." Jane steeled herself. "Is he okay?"

"He's resting." He didn't hesitate or pause as he said it, and that was in and of itself an enormous relief. Of course, this _was_ Nick Fury; he'd been the head of an intelligence agency for who knew how long, so could Jane really expect herself to detect a lie coming from him? And still she felt he had no real reason to lie to her—in general, but particularly not about this—so she took her reading of his voice at face value. "We don't know for how long. And since we've got no idea when he's going to wake up, I'd like to bring you out to him."

Jane ran a hand over her face and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, okay." She glanced at Darcy. "Can my lab manager come with me?"

Darcy beamed at her. Nick said, "She can. You're currently in São Paulo, Brazil, am I right?"

"Yeah, we just got here."

"I'll send you some coordinates where one of our planes'll pick you up. And I'd recommend bringing your work with you."

Jane tried not to read too much into that. "Okay."

* * *

Professor Miranda was entirely understanding, and even admitted (with a wry smile) that it wasn't too much of an inconvenience given numerous functions had been put on hold. Flights throughout Europe were delayed or canceled, and the entire airspace over Sokovia was a no-fly zone. The Internet was covered with efforts to reconnect people with loved ones who'd been in or near the city which was now scattered over thousands of acres.

A battlescarred quinjet picked them up on the roof of an otherwise empty parking garage (to the surprise and delight of a handful of onlookers in neighboring buildings). Their subsequent five hour flight put them, by Darcy's estimation, somewhere in the US, but she couldn't get more specific than that because as soon as they began to land the GPS mysteriously stopped working. They touched down just after sunset on a broad salt pan which was utterly empty save for the blocky, dark blue, military jeep waiting for them. Black, jagged mountains and low, gray and brown hills surrounded them at a considerable distance, and overhead the crescent moon shown faintly against the twilight sky.

From the landing site it was a short trip in the jeep to a dark, narrow, slot canyon, and from there another few minutes to the cavern which concealed the base's entrance. The jeep's driver—an older, pale woman with a seamed face, salt and pepper hair, and a deep, husky voice—explained that the modest facility was entirely underground.

Inside it was a hive of activity, so much so that Jane couldn't hardly take in the base itself, yet the driver seemed know precisely where they had to go and didn't let anyone deter them. And so not ten minutes after their arrival Jane and Darcy found themselves in a room at one far end of the small infirmary with Helen Cho.

They weren't the worst injuries she'd ever seen, but they were a close second. His right shoulder and left thigh were heavily bandaged, and his forehead had a sturdy headwrap. All three, despite the sheer amount of gauze and sterile pads involved, were still managing to ooze blood. He was much paler than she was used to seeing as well. As always, Mjölnir was lying on the bed at his right side, and his hand was resting lightly on the handle.

Darcy grimaced. "He's not more hurt on the inside than the outside, is he? Because this looks pretty rough."

Helen shook her head. "Nothing out of the ordinary for him after a fight like this."

"That's something I guess," Darcy said, and sat heavily in a chair. She pulled out her laptop, probably to figure out how to get them connected to the Internet.

Jane took Thor's left hand and squeezed it. He didn't respond in any way, though she hadn't really expected him to.

Helen studied her tablet for a moment and bit her lip. "I...am concerned about how much metaphysical damage he might have. I want to keep a closer eye on him than usual." She raised her eyebrows at Jane, and Jane nodded.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea." She noticed how pale Helen was, and added, "But we can take the first few shifts. You should get some sleep, you must be exhausted."

Helen seemed to try to smile and only half-managed it. There was a raggedness to her that went beyond the way she was favoring her right shoulder (an injury she'd taken care of using the tissue regenerator, maybe?). "It's been a busy few days," she said, her voice strained. Then she brushed her hair out of her eyes and sighed. "After I've looked in on everyone else I'll try a nap."

Jane knew Helen well enough to know that was about the best she could hope for, so she nodded and left it at that.

* * *

Most of the Avengers stopped by while Jane was there. First came Nick Fury and Maria Hill, next Colonel Rhodes and Sam, after them Steve and finally Natasha. Natasha was the one who told her the news about Bruce.

She felt dizzy as she tried to acknowledge it. "He's—gone?"

"Not dead," Natasha quickly clarified, and Jane decided she'd felt enough relief to fill ten lifetimes at this point. "He left. He took Stark's Quinjet and..." Natasha shrugged.

Jane was about to say 'I don't understand', but stopped herself. Even on his good days Bruce struggled with the Hulk and all the implications that came from his continued use of the Hulk's power as a force for good. After what had happened in Johannesburg, maybe he couldn't face anyone, not even Natasha, for a while. A long while.

Natasha was watching her. Jane fiddled with the fringe on the wool blanket Darcy had procured for her earlier. "I assume he didn't leave us any way to contact him?"

"No." Natasha smiled ruefully. "Not really his style."

Jane glanced down at her laptop. "Yeah. I guess not."

Tony never came to see Thor while Jane or Darcy were there. On the fourth day Darcy revealed that she'd spied him in Thor's infirmary room one night, long after they'd left to get some sleep in real beds. (She'd been on a trip to the kitchen for a midnight snack.) Tony paced and talked to himself, or maybe Thor, and generally acted distraught.

"I think he feels pretty responsible," Darcy said.

Jane was too tired to really feel the anger she knew that statement should call up. She settled for muttering, "He should," as she watched Thor sleep.

Darcy studied Thor. Presently, she said, "No argument from me on that one."

* * *

They fell into a routine of concerted efforts. Helen and Darcy kept Jane from adopting a pattern of not eating or sleeping in favor of work and trying to will Thor into healing faster, and Darcy and Jane kept Helen from overworking herself. It was as comfortable a situation as they could hope for given the circumstances, and it helped Jane immensely in those first few uncertain days.

That it was even possible for Jane to immerse herself in her research was a welcome surprise. The base had an isolated network dedicated to interfacing with external resources which allowed her and Darcy to get to their email and collaborate with Jane's peers on their institutional systems. Any time they weren't in the infirmary with Thor they were taking a conference call in one of the rooms a few doors down. She focused on doing what what she could for Professor Miranda, and they rescheduled her visit for some indeterminate time in the future. They got one paper wrapped up and submitted, and moved on to another one. And still Thor didn't wake up.

On the sixth day, Darcy said, "He's never been out this long. Has he?"

Jane shook her head. She let herself watch him for a few minutes before digging back into her most recent results from ALMA. It could just be her, after all. This wasn't the first time he'd ever been seriously hurt. He'd told her about some of the more harrowing and ill-considered things he and his brother had gotten up to in their youth. But it felt like it was taking too long. It felt like something wasn't right.

Jane was simultaneously relieved and worried to find out that Helen shared her concerns.

"The external reconstruction is proceeding so slowly," Helen said on day ten. She was checking the bandages on his shoulder and leg wounds, which were still oozing. "I've never seen it take this long for his skin to fully close."

"Maybe there was so much metaphysical damage that it's slowed down the physical healing." Even as she suggested it Jane felt like she was grasping at straws.

"That could be," Helen said, though she sounded unconvinced. She looked down at her tablet, and her face tightened with concern. "I've been so focused on the cradle. I neglected working with the data he's provided, and perhaps if I had, we'd know more about what's happening now."

Jane jumped in before Helen could keep berating herself. "No, no no," she said, shaking her head, and Helen stopped. "No, really, don't—that's not your fault. You've been amazing. You never harass him for more than he wants to give and you're incredibly careful with who has access to it. There's not a single other doctor on the planet he'd rather have looking over him."

Jane might have imagined it, but she thought Helen gripped her tablet a little more tightly. "Thank you," she said. "I just wish I could do more."

"Trust me. This is already a lot." She cleared her throat. "It's...the sitting and waiting is a lot easier knowing you're here."

Helen's expression cleared some. She took a deep breath, let it out, and continued going over the equipment and her tablet.

The next afternoon, Helen said, "I think it's the vibranium."

"The vibranium?" Darcy asked, and Helen nodded. She swept and tapped at her tablet, and gestured to send the output up to the wall display.

"Based on the readings we've been taking, it may be reacting with his biochemistry and the bioelectrical field that helps him heal. I don't believe it's negating it outright, since some of his injuries have improved, but it's slowing the process significantly." Jane wasn't an expert in molecular biophysics, yet the heatmap with its dead spots was convincing enough for her. Helen sighed heavily. "We removed everything we found, though maybe these are microscopic pieces left over from the explosion."

"Maybe the explosion atomized it," Jane said. She ran a hand over her face.

Helen hesitated, then said, "We could try a blood test. His physiology is similar to ours in numerous ways, so that could be sufficient to rule out vibranium saturation. If that's alright."

Jane had known that was coming. Helen was cautious when it came to tests and Thor, more so than anyone else, and Jane was unendingly grateful for that. As curious as she was, there were boundaries around just how much research Thor was willing to have done on him, and unlike many other medical professionals, Helen had been intensely sensitive to that.

"Yeah, it's fine."

Helen fetched a collection kit from a drawer, and within a handful of minutes a pair of junior medical personal in gray scrubs had whisked the sample away for testing. It took roughly an hour to process, and once the results were available Helen resolved them on the wall. That the amount wasn't zero was unsurprising, but the part where it made Helen's expression tighten was definitely bad news.

"Is that a lot?" Darcy asked. Helen nodded, and tapped at the interface. A moment later a sphere roughly the size of a tangerine drew in next to the spread of values.

"If we collected it all, that's how big it would be."

"Wow," Darcy said. "How do you get all of that out?"

Helen bit her lip. After considering the tables and graphs, she said, "We could try a chelating agent, maybe a modified siderophore. We have equipment here to produce a variant which could bind the vibranium. But we can't be sure his body would process it the same way ours does. It might not work, and could even prove harmful. And concentrating the vibranium is dangerous, we really want to take it out without letting it interact or pack together."

From the doorway, a familiar voice said, "Perhaps I could be of assistance."

Darcy startled away from the red and green and gold-caped form standing in the doorway. "Woah! Okay, I didn't realize JARVIS had a body now."

Helen smiled at Vision while Jane just stared. Everything Helen had told her about Vision hadn't, it turned out, prepared her to meet them.

Vision said, "I'm not JARVIS, though the mistake is understandable. You may call me Vision."

"Vision," Darcy repeated. "Right. Are you..." Darcy gestured. "A robot?"

"No." Vision considered their hand, then said, "It would perhaps be more appropriate to think of me as a new form of life. I'm not so crude as most human-built robots tend to be." They gave Darcy a small smile, and before she could ask anything else, said, "I'm pleased to meet you both in person, Ms. Lewis and Dr. Foster, though I believe we should attend to the matter at hand first."

"You can help remove the vibranium?" Helen said, and Vision nodded. They stepped into the room.

"Yes. Though, I will need the aid of another."

Helen's brow furrowed briefly. "Wanda Maximoff?"

Vision nodded. Jane swallowed, which Vision apparently noticed, because they turned to her. "I could try to perform the extraction without her, though I believe her abilities will make it less dangerous for Thor."

Jane licked her lips and glanced at Helen. Helen studied Vision, then nodded at Jane.

"Okay," Jane said.

* * *

Wanda Maximoff was astonishingly young and very pretty, and reminded Jane of a metal art sculpture. She was the kind of young woman who the unwary could easily label as frail and delicate, yet in reality was iron hard. Jane knew a little of her recent past, enough to know that life had been difficult for her, so maybe iron was more than just an analogy in her case.

Wanda nodded and gave her hellos in an Eastern European accent, meeting Jane and Darcy's eyes for a brief moment and no longer. Then she looked right at Mjölnir and seemed to draw back.

"I do not believe it will object," Vision said. "But if it does, I'll protect you."

Vision's reassurance appeared to relax Wanda somewhat, and she stepped forward and held out her hand. Red tendrils of soft, flickering light formed from her fingertips and reached out towards Thor, hovering just over him in a thin, ephemeral layer. Vision moved to stand opposite her and held out one of their hands as well, though where Wanda's was palm down, Vision's was palm up. Glimmering yellow light filled in the gaps between the red veins of Wanda's magic. Jane thought she could feel something like static electricity building in the room, the same way it did when Thor was acutely upset.

"Now, pull. Gently," Vision said. Wanda grimaced and drew her hand back slightly, and the red and yellow wove together and trickled down over and into Thor in a fiery aurora. Pressure built in the room, and Wanda winced at something.

Vision said, "You're doing fine." Wanda swallowed and brought her other hand up and made a complex gesture.

The aurora effect rippled and seemed to shimmer, though after a moment Jane realized what she was seeing was thousands upon thousands of tiny, winking specs rising up out of Thor. They coalesced into a hazy, silvery cloud, twisting this way and that through the mingled red-yellow light like a school of fish.

"Holy shit," Darcy whispered under her breath.

"Is that all of it?" Wanda asked. A fine sheen of sweat had formed on her brow.

Vision said, "Just a little more." The cloud of vibranium continued to solidify until it had become a writhing wave of liquid. "There."

Wanda clenched her outstretched hand into a fist, and the metal collapsed together into a baseball-sized sphere with a speed and force that sucked the air from the room. Vision's hand shot out and caught it before it could land on Thor. Wanda sagged, and Jane and Darcy moved to support her. Wanda leaned into them, rubbing at her eyes and whispering something under her breath in a language Jane didn't recognize.

Darcy peered at Wanda. "Are you okay?"

Wanda made a face. "I...will be. Thank you." Jane went and fetched Wanda a paper towel, which Wanda used to wipe her face dry. "Did it work?"

Helen had moved to the monitoring equipment and was tabbing through the readouts. "I think so," Helen said, sounding relieved. "The bioelectrical field's already stronger. We'll do another panel to make sure."

After studying the vibranium sphere, Vision offered it to Helen. She glanced at it and shook her head. "It should be returned to its rightful owners," she said. Vision tilted their head, and Helen clarified, "Wakanda. The vibranium was theirs before the smugglers stole it."

Vision nodded. "I will see that it is returned to them."

Wanda, now standing of her own accord, looked from Helen to Jane to Darcy. "Thank you. For letting me help." She quit the room, her posture tight and stiff. Vision dipped their head at the three of them and followed her at a measured pace.

"Well," Darcy said. " _That_ sure happened."


	5. Chapter 5

Thor improved steadily from there on out. The marks on his forehead went from barely healed to dark red outlines, and the larger wounds on his shoulder and leg finally closed over and began to knit properly. Helen was able to remove all of the bandages in short order.

Jane was going over the final revisions to a paper two days later when Helen said, "I saw the livestream of your second talk at the AAAS meeting."

Jane glanced up from her laptop. "Yeah? How nervous did I look?"

Helen smiled as she went about checking the various pieces of equipment, taking readings and adjusting settings. "Only a little. You did very well with their questions, especially the ones which wanted to drag the discussion into talking about the elves."

"Thanks." That had been only a week ago, yet it felt like forever when Jane tried to remember it. "It was...terrifying."

Helen winced in apparent sympathy. "When I gave my talk about the cradle at MIT last fall, I thought I might pass out."

"Was it one million degrees on the stage? Because it looked like it."

Helen nodded sharply. "Sweltering," she said. "I drank half my weight in water, I think. The host kept refilling my glass, and by the end I was just drinking out of reflex." Her tone shifted to gentle prodding, "But speaking of accomplishments, I hear there's a rumor you're up for a Nobel."

Jane looked down at the almost-submitted paper on her laptop. "Not holding my breath on that one. I'm pretty young for a Nobel, even if I've been to another galaxy." She glanced at Thor. "And this whole Utron thing's not going to help me out overall."

Helen mmmmm'd. "We'll see. I think you've still got a shot." She sent a dataset from her tablet to the wall display. After looking it over she said, "At last, some good results."

Jane set her laptop aside to join her at the wall. Helen gestured at the graphs and tables. "No vibranium in the blood panel. Everything's looking much closer to what we usually see for him."

"Finally," Jane said, and Helen nodded with satisfaction.

"I imagine he'll wake up no later than Saturday."

* * *

True to Helen's prediction, Thor woke up that Friday evening, blinking and squinting and looking confused by his surroundings. Jane spent a few seconds basking in the sheer intensity of her relief, then took one of his hand in hers.

"Hey," she said. "Welcome back."

He focused on her and gave her a weak smile. "Thank you," he said, and tightened his grip on her hand. "I'm glad to have returned." He sat up, frowning as he did so. "How long was I healing?"

"Too long. Just over two weeks."

Thor muttered under his breath and rearranged himself on the bed. "I'd hoped to be more careful, but the metal reacted to the lightning in...unexpected ways."

"So you had a lot of metaphysical damage?"

Thor made a low sound and nodded. His eyes went unfocused like they did when he was doing something with magic, and he made a face. "And I fear I have more resting to do before I am fully recovered."

"Does that mean you'll have plenty of time to tell me about what you and Erik were up to and what happened to the scepter?"

He let out a slow breath and stroked her arm. "Yes. I will tell you everything." He gave her a pathetic look. "Though, I'm quite hungry."

Jane sighed fondly and texted Darcy and Helen. _He's up. Needs food. Probably a lot._

* * *

Thor wasn't awake much those first few days, and devoted almost all of that time to eating, and explaining to Jane why he hadn't been answering his phone (it had been fried on his and Erik's adventure) and why no one else had contacted her (everything had gone to hell very quickly). The rest came in bits and pieces, while he worked to continue recovering: what he and Erik had done, and what Thor had discovered in the process.

"Father spoke to us of the pieces of the Beginning when you held the Aether. Do you remember?"

"Yeah. He called them stones."

"That is one name for them. Others call them gems. But no matter the name used, all are in agreement that they are concentrated sources of powerful and singularly focused energy." He looked out over the training room, expression thoughtful. They'd paused here in their walk around the facility to sit on a bench and talk away from the activity that kept the rest of the base on perpetual edge. Its walls were huge screens which could be calibrated to show panoramas of just about anywhere on earth (right now they were displaying a mountain meadow carpeted in wildflowers and dotted with tall, shivering aspens), and the floors were a dark orange hardwood with thick workout mats laid over half the surface. Jane had to admit, for a secret base parts of it were pretty quaint.

Thor continued, "The scepter contained one, shrouded so that its nature wasn't readily apparent except to those attuned to it."

"The one that's now in Vision's forehead."

"Yes." Thor looked down at his shirt and toyed with the hem. "I believe Vision should keep the Stone and go where they wish—though I hope they will choose to remain here."

"I take it this means you haven't told Tony and Steve that yet?"

Thor shook his head. "Steven is wary of Vision, and not without good reason. But Helen Cho was their creator as well, and she is to be trusted." He smirked. "Father will no doubt disagree, but I will not gainsay Mjölnir, and I don't believe he will either."

"So what else did you see in the water?"

"I saw the other stones. The Tesseract, the Aether, and one called the Orb. The Xandari claim that one is in their possession." Thor shifted. "I'm concerned that all four have become exposed in such a short time. For millennia they've remained hidden and buried. Forgotten. Now..." His eyes focused on some far point across the room, and he shook his head.

Jane leaned into him. "Do you think someone's behind this?"

Thor was some time in answering. "Yes." He took one of her hands in his and squeezed it. "And I fear their designs may concern Asgard. Though I no longer have the scepter, I still must return, and uncover what I can."

Jane felt herself growing cold. "Does that mean me visiting is off the table?"

Thor shook his head. "I will still request that. However..." He made a face. "Without the scepter, my bargaining position will be weakened. It might take me longer to convince him, or he may require a task of me."

Jane leaned into him. Now he had to go and uncover a mystery, _and_ work on his dad to get permission for her to visit. "Maybe you should just...not worry about the me visiting part."

Thor stroked her hair. "Only if you no longer wish to go. I believe I may still prevail."

"I'm not interested in your dad keeping us apart by dragging things out."

Thor made a low sound. "This is a possibility. Of course, once I have learned all I can, I could simply bring you there."

"Are you sure? Because that really didn't go over well last time."

Thor's eyes narrowed. "Earth controls the Mind Gem. This is a much greater feat than simply obtaining the scepter. And I have learned knowledge that may let us catch this foe off their guard. I think it will be possible to make my case for you after the fact."

Jane bit her lip. "Only if you think there's no other way I'll get to go. I want this trip to be..." She gestured, struggling to put how she felt into words for a handful of seconds. "This is a chance for us to formally open a channel with Asgard, right? So I'd rather it be the real deal, if that's possible. I don't want to be sneaking into your libraries after they're closed. I want to go to the Academies and talk to your scholars."

Thor nodded in that way he did when he was being overly formal. "Then I will do anything in my power to make it so, and only bring you in secret if there is no other way."

"Deal," she said. Then she nudged him. "But since I might have to wait more, it has to be a long trip."

"It will be as long as you wish."

"Months. Maybe years."

He smiled and ducked his head. "As long as you wish," he repeated, and lifted her hand to kiss the palm.

* * *

She ran into Tony in the kitchen the third night after Thor woke up. She was there making tea, and he came in to refresh his mug of coffee and start a new pot. At first they just exchanged cagey glances and said nothing. Jane watched the 24/7 news coverage on the displays in the living room that flanked the kitchen while Tony poured coffee grounds into a filter and started up the machine's cycle.

As th the smell of coffee began to fill the kitchen, Tony cleared his throat and said, "Ah, hey."

Reluctantly, Jane turned to face him. He seemed to need to work himself up to it. "I'm sorry," he said. "That I almost got your boyfriend killed."

Jane sighed and looked out over the kitchen. "You...you really don't need to apologize for that. Thor's way more than old enough to take his own risks."

"Yeah but he wouldn't have been taking any risks if I hadn't—if all of this hadn't happened."

Jane turned her mug around in her hands. "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe this would have happened anyways." Tony gave her a confused look. Jane said, "The Aether wasn't just a power source or a superweapon. It had sentience. The Mind Gem does too. Maybe it would have gotten itself tangled up in your project anyways. Maybe Ultron was inevitable."

Tony just stared at her. Jane said, "I'm not saying I'm not mad at you for," she gestured at the monitors in the living room, on which the news reports continued to replay Sokovia. "And I was definitely mad at you when Thor was still out cold, mostly because I was scared. But it's not really me you owe the apology to."

Tony nodded. "Okay," he said. "Thanks. For being honest."

"That's one thing you can depend on me for," Jane said, and smiled at him.

Tony smiled back, and though it was weak it was also genuine. "Yeah." He pushed off the counter and disappeared down the hall.

Jane watched the city shatter on the TV again before making her way back to the infirmary.

* * *

The base's limited accommodations were about the size of your average cheap motel, just much cleaner and more up-to-date. They were themed in blue and gray and copper colors, and like most cheap motels were crammed with furniture. There was a pair of dark brown sitting chairs, a workdesk set into the wall with a complete array of charging options for all of your electronics, a corner bathroom with what Jane swore was the smallest shower possible, and an array of the usual motel appliances: minifridge, microwave, and coffee maker. With Thor no longer staying in the infirmary the queen bed became a tight fit (not that either of them minded).

Jane slept heavily that first night he was back in a bed with her, and when she managed to rouse herself Thor was already up and in the shower. He liked to spend what she considered a ridiculous amount of time showering, so rather than wait she went in to brush her hair and teeth, then settled on the bed with her phone to read email and go through her RSS feed. By the time he came out she was through the new publications of note and on to the news articles, most of which were about Sokovia.

He'd trimmed his beard back to reasonable proportions and brushed and braided his hair, and now stood in the door to the little bathroom, watching her. Dark red marks lingered on his shoulder, thigh, and forehead, their placement and size corresponding to the worst of his injuries, though there was no sign of blood and no hitch in his movements.

Jane slid off the bed and approached him, checking for any other indication of how long it had taken him to heal, yet there was nothing. He tilted his head at her and made no move otherwise, just waited. When she was within arm's reach, she tried to cover the red marks on his shoulder with one hand and couldn't. His expression had grown concerned, and she said, "This was a close call."

He covered her hand with one of his. "I've had worse."

Jane thought of the few scars he had, like the rough, jagged line along his lower abdomen (a very old one, he'd said, from a spear, and hadn't gone into further detail) and the thin seam down his chest, roughly a handspan long (some sort of ritual when he was a boy) and choked back a half-hysterical laugh. "That's really not as reassuring as you probably think it is."

Thor smiled and set his forehead against hers. "My injuries were not insignificant, but Helen Cho is one of your people's finest healers. I am well."

Jane took in a deep breath and let it out. Until two weeks ago, she was sure she'd found an acceptable waterline for her relationship with him. Sometimes he had to go radio silent and sometimes he came back from a foray with the Avengers with injuries—occasionally severe ones—but he always bounced right back. Having real, tangible evidence that this wasn't always going to be the case, even when dealing with things from Earth, was more than a little terrifying.

Rather than let fear lock her up, she concentrated on his warm and still-damp skin under her hands, whole and unmarred save for the faint, crimson discoloration, and that helped calm her down. New and unexpected things would always be the norm with him. Sometimes those things would be amazing and wonderful and sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes they would even be awful. That was just the nature of the uncharted, uncertain territory which was her life with him in it.

Thor moved his hand to her neck and said, "It will take far more than a rogue construct—even one produced by the power of the Mind Stone—to take me from you." Then he kissed her; not one of the brief, chaste kisses they'd been exchanging while he was still being monitored in the infirmary, but a real kiss, deep and lingering and with them clinging to one another. And oh, was she ever glad she'd brushed her teeth because it had only been a couple of weeks since they'd been like this yet she was acutely aware of every single day of it.

When they paused to catch their breath, she said, "How recovered are you feeling, exactly."

He kissed his way down her neck and mmmm'd against her collarbone, then shifted against her so she could feel for herself just how very recovered he was.

"Allow me to demonstrate," he said.

* * *

As convenient as Nick Fury's secret base was, it was also small and not meant to hold a large number of people for anything close to an extended period of time. Also, he didn't want the Avengers staying in it forever. It wasn't likely to remain very secret for long if quinjets were coming and going at all hours of the day and his bandwidth usage quadrupled overnight.

Fury's request that the Avengers sort something else out was fine by Jane. The shock of Sokovia was fading, and in the wake of that she needed to get back to working in public. Attitudes like Kreisberg's would be out in full force, and Jane wanted to be ready to refute them openly. Also, despite how the base was about as comfortable as an underground sanctuary could be, Jane was dying for an afternoon in a cafe.

Since Thor would be leaving for an indeterminate amount of time and in all likelihood might only return to collect Jane (and hopefully Darcy) for a trip to Asgard, he took his leave of the Avengers. Jane wasn't there to witness him breaking the news, though if the resigned expressions Steve and Tony sported for the next few days were any indication they'd been anticipating it. Natasha and Clint didn't take it quite so hard. Of course, Jane suspected they were used to this sort of thing.

Helen saw the three of them off on a bright, late summer morning. A quinjet waited to take them to Los Alamos, New Mexico, from which Jane was starting a short series of visits to US facilities and observatories before she went abroad once more.

Darcy said, "It was great to see you again," and gave Helen a quick hug. She was up inside the jet not a second later, eager to get back to civilization.

Thor clasped Helen's hands in his. "I owe you a great debt, Helen Cho. If ever you require my help, you need only call to Heimdall."

Helen glanced over head, squinting against the bright desert sun and hard, blue sky. "He'll hear me from anywhere?"

"He shall." Thor stepped back and boarded the jet, leaving just Jane and Helen. Jane pulled Helen into a hug.

"Take care of yourself," Jane said. "Any time you want to get away from—whatever they're going to do next, just give me a call."

Helen gripped her fiercely, then let go and stepped back. "I will. Watch out for the alien haters and science deniers."

"I will."

Helen smiled and tucked some stray hairs back into her bun. Jane turned and, after gazing out over the desolate salt pan one last time, climbed the quinjet's ramp and sat down next to Thor. He took her hand and laced his fingers in hers.

Darcy sighed and shook her head. "Still have no idea where we are," she said, and pocketed her phone.

* * *

Thor came and went over the course of the remains of summer as he worked with the Avengers to clean up in the aftermath of Sokovia. He related bits of news to Jane and Darcy any time he returned from one of these trips. Tony had decided to leave the Avengers, as had Clint. Natasha and Steve intended to reform the team, starting with Sam and Colonel Rhodes, and had plans to construct a new facility somewhere out of the public eye.

A fair amount of his time also went to working with Wanda and Vision to better understand their respective abilities. He explained to Jane that human magic was unlikely to mirror Æsir magic, since each species had its own perspective on the universe and the forces which moved within it. There might be ways they would be similar, just as Vanir and Ljósálfar magic was similar to Æsir magic, but there would be just as many ways they differed. He wouldn't be able to teach Vision or Wanda much, if anything, though he could learn a great deal _from_ them about what shape humanity's magic might take. (Jane also suspected that Thor and Wanda's common loss—that of a close sibling in dire circumstances—was a factor in his interest, though she kept this to herself.)

As Thor's time with Wanda and Vision continued, he suggested Steve consider Vision for the Avengers, and since Vision had formed a rapport with Wanda ("'Rapport'?" Darcy asked, giving Thor a wry look, and Thor merely shrugged), they in turn asked if Wanda might find a new home with the Avengers as well. Confident of Wanda's growing abilities, Thor had encouraged Steve and Natasha to take them both. And so by the beginning of fall the Avengers were six again.

In the mean time Jane's career grew considerably more turbulent. The Loudly and Proudly Xenophobic crowd quadrupled overnight, except now it just wasn't aliens they hated; they were after anyone 'not normal', anyone 'enhanced'. She fended off more than a few accusations she was among this group, and found herself subjected to a whole new line of questions about whether or not she was pregnant with an alien-human hybrid. Even some of her peers became critical of her association with Thor.

"As if you or my work is to blame for Ultron," she muttered over her coffee one morning. Thor, sitting on the couch next to her, had pulled her against him and stroked her side.

"Ultron was a threat from Earth itself, rather than one born outside it. It's always harder to defend against such things. And often, we are more afraid of them as a result. Our fear is greater when it is our own home which turns against us."

She sighed. He was probably right. This time, there was no other species to blame things on, no other world the horrors had spawned from. Humans and human-made things had destroyed Sokovia and laid waste to Johannesburg and trashed Seoul—not aliens.

* * *

Thor's departure didn't involve Jane and Darcy watching the Bifröst whisk him away like it had in the past. This time he needed to speak to Steve and Tony before he left, which meant a trip to the new secret base. As much as he wanted to bring Jane and Darcy with him, Jane's CERN trip (another one Darcy refused to let anything interrupt, it had been so hard to put together) wrapped up in a few days. After that she was going to the Canary Islands for a visit to ORM and Teide Observatory, and from there to São Paulo to make up for the aborted visit with Professor Miranda's lab. Even if Thor was able to convince Steve to let them come with him—and there was no guarantee of that, apparently, since the new base was not meant to be public—Jane and Darcy didn't have the time.

"I will be gone no longer than I must be," he said, and kissed her forehead. "And hopefully I will return with permission to bring you and Darcy for a formal visit."

Jane held him tight. "Remember. I'm showing up under my own power if you take too long."

She felt him smile against her hair. "Is that meant to make me return sooner?"

She poked him in the side, and he laughed and kissed her, slow and lingering. They stood a few more minutes in the little rental unit's meager yard, touching one another and saying whatever came to mind in the cold, Swiss autumn air. Eventually Jane let go of him and stepped back, and he swung Mjölnir and shot into the sky. The leaden clouds overhead spiraled away from him in a broad tunnel that sparked with lightning, and thunder rolled over the city for a good minute or more, shaking windows and setting off car alarms.

She stayed and watched until the lightning had died away and she was sure she couldn't see the red of his cape anymore. _He'll be back_ , she told herself. _Deep breaths._ A sharp gust of wind finally drove her back inside.

Darcy offered her a mug of appropriately doctored tea and said, "Don't worry. He won't be gone long."

Jane accepted it and took a sip. Just the right amount of honey and cream. "If he is, when I get this figured out I'm just going to come and get him."

"That's the spirit." Darcy swept at her phone. "First meeting's not until eleven, so we can go in a little late if you want."

Jane sat at the kitchen table and nursed her tea. "That is what I want."

"Gotcha."

A minute later Jane's phone started to buzz against the counter tiles. She ignored it. Darcy glanced at it, then over her.

"Aren't you going to get that?"

Jane shook her head. "It can't be important."

"What if it is?"

"I don't care. I'm now going to indulge myself in a proper 'my boyfriend will be out of the galaxy for who knows how long' sulk for at least two hours, and everyone gets to leave voicemails in the meantime."

Darcy rolled her eyes and picked up the phone. She frowned at the number. "International," she said under her breath, and took out her own phone, probably to look it up. Jane stayed focused on her tea.

Darcy said, "From Sweden," and in her peripheral vision Jane saw Darcy watch her for a reaction, shrug, and tap the phone to answer. "Jane Foster's phone, Darcy Lewis speaking." A pause. "Can I ask who's calling?" Another pause. "Oh. _Oh_ , yeah," Jane thought she heard the person on the other end laugh, "let me, I mean—she's right here."

Darcy bolted across the kitchen to the dining nook and shoved the phone into Jane's free hand. "Answer this," she said. Her tone clearly indicated it wasn't a request.

Jane peered at the number. "Who is it?"

"It's a guy from Stockholm."

Jane eyed her phone. "Someone from Birte's lab?"

Darcy gripped her head. "No, it's not from NORDITA, just answer it."

"Well I don't know anyone else in Stockholm, so who—" Jane stopped when her eyes fell on the date displayed below the calling number: October 7th, 2015.

A phone call from Stockholm, on the Wednesday of the second week of October.

Darcy nodded at her, eyes wide, and gave her a thumbs up. Jane realized her hand was shaking, and took a steadying breath. Only when she was sure she wouldn't drop the phone did she hold it up to her ear.

"Hi," she said. Her voice sounded thin, almost squeaky, but at least it was even. "This is Jane. Jane, Foster, speaking."

"Dr. Foster," a man's voice said in a heavy Swedish accent. "It's so good to speak with you. My name is Staffan Normark, and I am calling on behalf of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences."


End file.
